Abby Sunderland possibly lost at sea.

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I am very glad she survived the stunt and has been rescued from herself....!
Who will pay for the rescue cost, the sponsors, the parents?
I don't know if Qantas supplied the search plane or if it was chartered by someone? The closest vessel ceased its commercial fishing and headed to pickup of course. A day and a half to there, a day or more to port to be announced, a day or more back to work - 4 or more days not in the commercial operations financed by owners to rescue the idiot. Australia and I think US sent backup planes.
Laurence Sunderland addressed critics who said his daughter was too young to sail solo around the globe, and also questioned the cost involved in rescuing her.
"In regards to a 16-year-old going on this trip, if you take the age factor out of it, you're either good enough to go on that trip or you're not," he said. "Abigail's proved herself and her ability over and beyond most people that are out there on the ocean doing similar things."
As for the cost, Sunderland said, "my daughter's life is priceless."
Priceless yes, but you didn't agree to pay did you dad...? :mad:
Parents are divorced. If I recall it was her father who wanted her to do it and her mother who sued her father to stop the trip. I'm with the mom.
Really? I guess that would explain the wording of "Abby's pregnant mother is expected to go into labor soon, so her parents will not fly out to meet her, Sunderland said" maybe? Doesn't say that they are expecting a baby, but it still implies joint parenthood.

I was loading my own truck and hauling cattle at a much younger age, before I was licensed at 14 even, but this area was quite different then. No way I would have been allowed to go out of town overnight, much less out of state at that age.
 
... to rescue the idiot.

I was loading my own truck and hauling cattle at a much younger age, before I was licensed at 14 even,...
Idiot? Hardly.

Painting her as some dimwitted girl doing what her daddy wants her to do is not accurate of fair. She is a very bright girl who is a very skillful sailor. Hardly a mall walking, bubble-gum chewing valley girl.

Read her blog's and background before you resort to name calling and judgement.
 
Idiot? Hardly.

Painting her as some dimwitted girl doing what her daddy wants her to do is not accurate of fair. She is a very bright girl who is a very skillful sailor. Hardly a mall walking, bubble-gum chewing valley girl.

Read her blog's and background before you resort to name calling and judgement.
I trust that she is an accomplished sailor far better than the ones the GC has to rescue in Calf waters, much less compared to typical urban kids today. :shakehead: The stunt was idiotic tho.

I'm done some stupid things at times, having had to be rescued myself a time or two, but they pale in comparison - as does my arrogance in those stunts. Her dad is more to blame as she is yet a kid in mental awareness, but the joint feeling must have been: "If she gets into trouble, the world will save her - after all she is a lovely young damsel in distress." So a large segment of the world stopped what it was doing to spend more than that boat was ever worth to save her hide, but I don't expect her to send her book royalties to those who lost so much money on her rescue.
 
Abby has logged over 60K miles on a sailboat. She is very experienced and no more an idiot than any other kid who has dedicated themselves to their sport.

She needed rescuing. That fishing boat did what any boat would do in the ocean when another boat needs help. Guess what, she would have gone off course to rescue them too if needed.

But now days we're worried about the costs. Funny how that works. We don't worry about the cost of providing for illegal aliens or anything else but a kid needs help and we're concerned about costs? My young cousin will draw social security for his entire life from age 20 on because he's "too nervous" to look for a job.

Abby is a long ways from an idiot and I have a sneaky feeling she won't be a drain on society for her entire life as millions here in this country are.
 
I trust that she is an accomplished sailor far better than the ones the GC has to rescue in Calf waters, much less compared to typical urban kids today. :shakehead: The stunt was idiotic tho.

OK, that's your opinion but I don't share it.

As for the risks? How many teenage sailors have circumnavigated the planet and died or even needed rescue in the attempt vs adults attempting the same feat?

She is indeed an accomplished sailor and one that will do just fine in life.
 
Say what you will, that's a sixteen year old with the heart of a lion.
 
OK, that's your opinion but I don't share it.

As for the risks? How many teenage sailors have circumnavigated the planet and died or even needed rescue in the attempt vs adults attempting the same feat?

She is indeed an accomplished sailor and one that will do just fine in life.

Admittedly, I have not read most of the thread but I disagree with her pursuit of a such an endeavour. The father's comment after she was deemed to be in trouble is case in point. He stated she is an accomplished sailor having logged the same experience of someone 25 years of age.

How many record setting explorers have you witnessed that are only 25 years old much less 16? It is clearly a dream of one or more of the ambitious and affluent parents. It is commonsense to me anyway that such pursuits be initiated at an older age when both physical and mental maturity are in place...
 
Risk is always about degrees, so it's ridiculous to try to make it black and white.

Some parents buy their teens (or allow their teens to buy) high hp cars, whereas others insist that's not safe and a teen needs a low hp car until they've matured more. Every time a teen is killed in a Mustang or M3 or whatever, people blame the car's speed. When a teen is killed in a Civic or Malibu, it's a tragic accident. Which is correct?

Jordan Romero just summitted Everest (his Seventh Summit) at the ripe old age of 13. Many people said that it was foolish, he didn't have the mental maturity to handle it. But he succeeded. Were those people wrong, or was he lucky, or is he unique for a 13 year old?

In the last few years, 3 other teens have solo-sailed the globe, including Ms Sunderland's brother. They made successful voyages. Were their parents foolish and those teens were lucky to survive, or is this simply safer than people think for the right teen with the correct training, experience, equipment and resources?

How many kids are killed in traffic accidents on prom night? Is any parent that lets their kid go to prom foolish?

How many teens die from alcohol-related incidents during Spring Break? Is any parent that lets their teen go on a Spring Break trip foolish?

If Ms Sunderland had died on this voyage, would her life have been wasted? If she had put off this voyage until she was 22 and more capable of handling it, but then died in a school shooting when she was 18, would her life have been wasted?

Risk is a sliding scale with many variables. I'm not saying sending Ms Sunderland on this trip was a great idea, but to pretend like this single act is patently foolish is narrow minded.

Life involves risk, sitting in your recliner or diving the Doria, or buying more house than you can afford, or doing drugs, or getting married or climbing Everest. One must balance the risk, the avenues of mitigation, and the reward of the activity.

The only absolute left in the world is that there are no absolutes left in the world.

$0.02
 
Some parents buy their teens (or allow their teens to buy) high hp cars, whereas others insist that's not safe and a teen needs a low hp car until they've matured more. Every time a teen is killed in a Mustang or M3 or whatever, people blame the car's speed. When a teen is killed in a Civic or Malibu, it's a tragic accident. Which is correct?

Giving a young driver the keys to a high performance car is significantly increasing the possibility of serious injury or worse. It's not the car's speed to blame but the parents who provided the vehicle in the first place. Parents also do young drivers no favors by providing sub-compacts. Survival in the case of a major impact is severely compromised. A used mid-sized car or SUV has always been the practice of my extended family...
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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